Modern enterprise business software systems may provide among other services functions for Supply Chain Monitoring, Supply Chain Collaboration, Demand Planning, Supplier Network Planning, Multilevel Supply and Demand Matching, Global ATP (“Available to Production”), Production Planning, Transportation Training and Vehicle Scheduling, Maintenance and Service Training, Master Data and Administration Functions. These services may be made available from a single software application, which is referred to herein as an APO (“Advanced Planning Optimizer”). Associated with an APO is a set of tables containing business data. These tables may be accessed by functions provided by the APO.
With respect to production planning, as production and manufacturing cycles become more complex, it becomes apparent that the software must provide services for tracking these complex transactions and allow for flexible transaction processing. Particularly for certain complex environments such as the semiconductor industry it is often necessary to accommodate highly complex order splits, merges and changes.
In addition to providing functions to handle complex split, merge and change requirements, it would be beneficial to provide access to these services in a convenient manner such as through a convenient user interface such as graphical user interface (“GUI”). This is particularly apparent, as it is often necessary to access these functionalities from an industrial environment.